Southern Romania's tourist assets

We're heading, today, to southern Romania's Ialomita County, in the region of Wallachia. Here we can find one of Romania's one-of-a-kind museums: the National Museum of Agriculture. Also, we're about to find out more on the maestro Ionel Perlea. Born in Ialomita County, the Romanian musician conducted a great number of opera shows worldwide. Ionel Perlea was also the conductor of famed symphony orchestras around the world, especially in the United States of America. In villages across Ialomita County, we're sure to discover unique traditions and customs, such as the horse-shoeing of eggs or the fretwork for the eaves decoration. Our guide today is the manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of Radio Romania's News and Current Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor. Clementina told us that the whole county Ialomita river flows through the entire county, form the east to the west. Almost all assets somehow lie in the vicinity of the river that gave the name of the county. Our journey begins with the Slobozia municipal city.

Clementina Tudor:

 "In Slobozia, we have something unique at national level, the National Museum of Agriculture, which was established by the late museographer Răzvan Ciucă and which brings together a tremendous legacy of the Romanian people. It is the Romanian peasant's cultural legacy, equally traditional and ancestral, irrespective of the region they were born and grew up in. Also nearby Slobozia municipal city, we have the resort of Amara, famous before 1989. Amara balneal spa was and still is a noted landmark in the Ialomita County's tourism and we 're happy that, after such a downfall the whole country had been going through, the resort of Amara still lives up to its former status, nay, he resort is thriving. A great many tourists opt for coming over to follow a treatment scheme, but also to relax in the resort of Amara. Apart from the wonderful lake, apart from the natural mud baths, they can relax taking a stroll around a park with hundreds of nut trees, which was refurbished a couple of years ago, with European funding. Actually, investments have been made in the region, some of them public, others private, and in Amara we also have a SPA complex, which is also open during winter.

We're now heading towards the county's rural area. All villages have retained something of the Baragan Plainfield tradition. However, in Ialomita County there are several villages where the peasant house's traditional architecture has been preserved to this day. With details on that, here is the manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of Radio Romania's News and Current Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor.

"Specifically, I'm speaking about the Jilavele commune, in the west, where there also is an authentic peasant house, yet such a house can also be found in the Centre of the county, in Grindu, Grindasi. In any of Ialomita County's localities we can see something of the ancestors' cultural heritage. Actually, we, employed by the Cultural Centre, we have edited al album of the florist's in Baragan, and the florist's in Baragan are those samples of fretwork that adorned our grandparents' porched galleries. They can still be seen and admired. I am very happy there are still heirs who understood to preserve that kind of specificity and not all of them modernize the houses they inherited from their grandparents. In Jilavele, we have Mr. Simion, who horse-shoes Easter eggs in the most beautiful possible way. And, at the farther end of the county, in the village of Luciu, which is part of the Gura Ialomitei commune, we have a lady, Mrs. Ana Banu, who does intricate stitch patterns, but who also manufactures peasant's coarse leather footwear, opinci, in Romanian. We do not have that many traditional craftsmen, but they are somehow personalized. Not to mentioned the fact that all women on the Ialomita villages can knit all sorts of things and weaving is still performed, on the traditional loom. We also have blacksmiths that can be seen at work. For instance, Mister Toma, the blacksmith in the commune of Traian, is very happy welcoming his guests. He works round the clock even before the Epiphany Day, a traditional feast held in high esteem in Ialomita and in Baragan, when clients cue up at his gates, who shoe their horses before Epiphany Day."

There are a great many events taking place in Ialomita County, and their timeline can begin even with the Epiphany Day, says the manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of Radio Romania's News and Current Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor. The Epiphany Day, actually, is a feast held in high esteem in all the villages of Ialomita County. All householders take out their horses and wagons, adorn them and, with them, they go to church. Then they have speed or endurance carriage-driving competitions in the plainfield. There is no local community where such competition is not held. In the end, since the Epiphany Day is observed on January the sixth, when temperature readings are very low, everything ends with a glass of mulled plum brandy or mulled wine and a great party.

Clementina Tudor:

"For 30 years, in the month of May, we have the Ionel Perlea Festival and Contest. We've now had the 32nd edition. It is a festival that initially began with a lieder contest and which, in time, gained its international scope, this year bringing together more than 50 competitors, Romanian, but mostly foreign, and which is held with the Ionel Perlea Orchestra. The contest ends with a mandatory visit of all participants to the Ionel Perlea Memorial House in Ograda. Given that we're speaking for our listeners abroad, Ionel Perlea is the one who put Ialomița and Romania on the world's great lyrical map, and what I have in mind saying that are Europe's great stages, and especially the Scala di Milano. Here, the conductor Ionel Perlea succeeded the great Arturo Toscanini, and Arturo Toscanini gave him his baton, deeming him as a worthy successor. Also, Ionel Perlea continued his world-level blazing trail from the Scala di Milano to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, there where, just like Arturo Toscanini, he also had an academic career as a professor. So we can somehow link Ionel Perlea's personality to this contest, in a bid to promote Ialomita County as well."

There are two ongoing cultural programs carried by the Ialomita County Council. With details on that, here is the manager of the Ionel Perlea Cultural Centre and the local correspondent of Radio Romania's News and Current Affairs Channel, Clementina Tudor.

"The Bolomey Manor House has been refurbished with non-reimbursable funds and large-scale public events are intended to be organized on the premises, such as the Electric Castle Festival, which, in turn, is also staged around a manor house. The second project is a route along Ialomita river or along the Ialomita river banks. The route should be taken by boat by kayak, or by bike, or on foot, with several stopovers being organized here and there, where the tourists can have a rest and grab a bite. One such stopover point could by the Manasia manor house, which is also a tourist asset and which was refurbished with private funding. " (EN)